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| | Ask HN: How would you build a service that is still be functional in 1000 years? | | 2 points by mtw on Aug 3, 2013 | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments | | Assuming that Internet is here to say, I want fixed text (less than 10ko) to be published on the Internet at regular pre-determined times in the future, for 10, 100 or even 1000 years. Obviously you can't have a standard web server because the hosting company would go bankrupt. There are also issue of electronic component decay, or changing protocols and languages. I've thought about self-replicating web software that would self-evolve with the contained data, or maybe an autonomous raspberry pi-unit (solar panel, enclosed in a glass unit) that would broadcast wirelessly the text. Other ideas? |
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For 10 years it's easy - pay a few dozen people to make sure it happens. 100 years is harder, but doable with the same fashion. For a movie example, consider the Western Union message that Doc Brown sent in 1885 to Marty McFly in 1955, in Back to the Future II. Brown had the advantage of knowing that Western Union would exist, but I can imagine similar systems working.
After all, there are long-running experiments which take more than a lifetime, like Beal's germination experiment which started in 1879 and is expected to end in 2100. With enough money you can set up a fund, with a requirement that the information be published at set times in the future.
For 1,000 years? Forget about it. There are few human systems which have worked for that long, and your best bet is to write a document that's interesting enough so as to inspire someone in the future to transmit that document for you. For example, read http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97nov/teller.htm and see how someone in 1916 convinced someone in 1997 to do something.
For an entertaining fable, read http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=11894 regarding a tale of New College, Oxford needing new oak beams.